Thursday, May 31, 2007

Next week I'll be heading back out to California for my job. I'll be there for the majority of the week and spending most of my days at a conference. In the evenings and at night however, I will most definitely be finding some stuff to get into. Restaurants, sight-seeing, bars, lounges, clubs, shopping, etc. You know, doing the tourist type stuff. And of course, the camera will be in FULL EFFECT. And I'm NOT going to lose it (shot out to JAC)!

If any of you live in the San Fran area, know good people in the San Fran area, or are familiar with the area and can point me in the direction of some fun/cool/enjoyable stuff to do, please drop me a comment.Online Pet Peeve #2: Ghetto usernames

Recently, the usage of ghetto usernames for email accounts, myspace screen names, IM screen names, etc. has caught my attention. If you are an adult and have a full-time job with responsibilities like bills, children, a mortgage, etc. your screen name should not be ridiculously ghetto. Actually, if you're 23 or older, just give it up. For example:

...and so on and so forth. I can't imagine that people with email addresses like those above actually use these on their resumés. Or if you happen across an old friend at a gathering and they ask for your email address, do you give them this address? Seriously, there's no way Johnson & Johnson is sending you a job offer to t0ple$$_honie@gmail.com or thug_angel@yahoo.com. You can forget that! Do you think your email address could get you nixed from the pool of applicants? I wouldn't put it past people to do just that.

Being real, I will admit that I used to have an email address like this, boneymike@yahoo.com. That was my nickname back in high school and college, boneymike so I figured it'd be easy for people to remember my email address that way. But once I entered my senior year of college, I got rid of that and replaced it with a more "neutral/friendly" email address.

Once you're grown, you need to get rid of the ghetto email addresses and the ghetto screen names. Yes, it's hard to let everybody know your email address is changing. Yes it's hard to transfer all of your contacts (then again, not really). Yes it's hard to let go of those nicknames we thought were slick when we were teens and really young adults. But there's a time to let go!

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Today, Kobe Bean Bryant asked to be traded from the Lakers (source: ESPN.com). This comes a day after he called the team's front office a "mess" and also suggested that former GM Jerry West come back and replace his own protege, Mitch Kupchack (sp?). And it comes after Kobe's spent each year of his NBA career thus far in LA and won 3 championships with the Big Aristotle. Perhaps Mr. Anal (no johnnycakes) realized that he's not going to win a championship with his surrounding cast. Or, that without a dominant force like Shaq in the middle, he's doomed to only make it to the first or second round of the playoffs every year.

One important thing I noticed about Kobe's desire to be traded is that he ALSO said there's nothing that can change his mind and that he'll "go play on Pluto", insinuating that he never wants to play for the Lakers again. And ironically, Lakers owner Jerry Buss was arrested last night for driving under the influence. With some of the player moves he's forced in the past, you begin to wonder if he's been "owning under the influence" the past couple of years.

If Kobe does land in Chicago (one of two places he mentioned he could have signed with a couple years back) he'll become a part of one of the best young teams in the NBA. And a competitive young team at that. Who knows if the trade would require the Bulls to trade draft picks, players, or a combination of both, but the prospect of Kobe ending up in the Windy City is an interesting one.

This demand by Kobe is also interesting if not for the potential ramifications within the powers of the Eastern Conference of the NBA, for the potential social ramifications. Picture this, in Chicago Kobe could go on a rampage (remember 8 straight games with 40+ points; how about that 81 point performance) trying to prove to everybody that he is not only as good as Michael Jordan, but better. Everybody knows that Kobe thinks he's the best player in the league. Why shouldn't he? The boy is bad on that court! But in Chicago, he may be able stop all the comparisons to MJ by doing what MJ did and possibly more. Can you picture Kobe and the young Bulls winning six championships? Okay, maybe (like me) you can't. But if that were to happen, in the minds of many Chicagoans he'd probably rival MJ.

Peep the belt...Kellz is gonna have to change that outfit to RED to team up with "Chicago Kobe".

Last but not least, in Chicago, Kobe could re-kindle his shiddy rap career by teaming up with Kanye to da (...the what?). Kanye and Kobe combining would be a sort of match made in egotistical Heaven wouldn't it? You have Kanye's supreme confidence and Kobe's unshakeable arrogance. This would be the most athletically vain piece of music created, EVAR!

Kobe featuring Tyra Banks....That right there, says all you need to know about this video.

The only downside I see to Kobe ending up in Chicago is that we probably won't get to see his wife Vanessa in those nice dresses as often. His wife is SMOKING HOT and that's about 90% of what I enjoy about Kobe Bryant. The other 10% is what he does on the court. But from what I understand Vanessa doesn't have many friends so she probably won't care if they have to move to Chicago. And since the West side of Chicago has so many hoodrats, she probably won't mind letting Kobe leave the house without his leash. In the end though, all the guys like me who love pictures like THIS (the dress is corny, I know) will be the losers. Kobe's going to WIN regardless. Except in the playoffs.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

No, not pizzing on 12 year olds after adjusting the focus on the video camera to make sure there's a clear shot of himself (a vain molester, niiiiiice). But yet-and-still, here is more proff that this guy has officially lost it. He spends an entire song cursing out his "girl". This guy is wild.

Oddly enough, I am starting to like this song. I always thought the lyrics were pretty on-point (just pay attention to the pattern of rhyme) but that the beat was missing something. I guess I've gotten used to the beat (even with the awkward Jeezy adlibs) now. And I think the simplicity of the video makes at interesting. If this video makes it past the #8 spot on 106 & South Park I will be shocked. Then again, there is the whole payola factor.

Don't get me wrong, I like GAME, but he must really be bipolar with all his back-and-forth about beefing with rappers and not beefing with rappers and dissin' legends and not dissin' legends. Get it together GAME because I think Hov warned you a minute ago...

I know they weird... some queer, I still want them to share/And all the success I received, I know you can't believe/I still love 'em but they don't love me/They like the drunk uncle in your family/You know they lame, you feel ashamed, but you love 'em the same/It's like when niggaz make subliminal records/If it ain't directed directly at me, I don't respect it/You don't really want it with Hov, for the record/I put a couple careers on hold, you could be next kid/Keep entering the danger zone/You gon' make that boy Hov put your name in a song/If you that hungry for fame, motherfucker c'mon/Say when, take ten paces and spin/...I'm in a good mood, you lucky, I got a good groove/And I ain't trying to fuck my thing up/But I will lay down a couple green bucks, get you cleaned up/Now I'm +Pulp Fiction+, Colt four-fifth and/Young niggaz that blast for me/blasphemy, no religion/

"A Philadelphia man is suing Jay-Z, Damon Dash and Roc-A-Fella Films for $15 million over their 2002 film State Property. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, South Philly author Antonne Jones claims that the film’s plot was ripped off from his book, The Family: A Philadelphia Mob Story. "

Random Music

Kanye & Young Jeezy - Can't Tell Me Nothing (Remix): Even adding Jeezy to the track doesn't help it. Then again, who expects Jeezy to add to a track? On top of that, I don't understand how this is a remix when Jeezy's adlibs were on the first leak of this track anyway. This seems like a preliminary version got leaked with the adlibs so they went ahead and finished it up by adding Jeezy's verse and leaking that. Either way, the song just seems like it has something missing production-wise. I think Kanye's lyrics are pretty good. And Jeezy is his usual coke-err-rific self.

Central Cali We Takin Over Remix featuring Planet Asia, Diego Redd, Shake Da Mayor, and Fashawn.: Everybody seems to love this beat too. And from the sound of this song, it seems like this beat can actually make your raps sound better. LOL.

Monday, May 21, 2007

I have a secret to share with you all. I heart the hell out of Chipotle. I can get a chicken burrito bol (why in de hell is the 'w' not in there?...I took French, sue me!) and soda for roughly $8 and not have the urge to eat for another square root of 64 hours. Lovely stuff! On top of that, Chipotle cleans me out like the ex-lax my mom used to force feed me when I was a kid that couldn't stop eating candy and drinking soda. So not only is it good-tasting food that satisfies your hunger, it's good for your digestive system. Especially if you get the "hot" sauce. Whew! Anywho, I am getting off track here...

It would be rather difficult to sling rocks or shoot someone while manning up on a Chipotle burrito. Everybody knows you need two hands unless you're Shaq, Greg Oden, or some other mutation of a human being. No offense to the aforementioned basketball players. Aside from the size hindering your ability to grab that 9mm and let off shots, the taste of a Chipotle burrito would turn that gangsta grizzile into a smile because it's oh-so delicious! There's no way Lil Mook, Knee Brace, Lil Defibrillator, Teflon Sean , or Lil Acid Rain could maintain an ice grill while enjoying such a delightful concoction of rice, beans, and meat. Don't even get me started on how much of an impact the chips and salsa could have. Mandatory double-hand action on that shyt!

I say all this to say, if you live in an urban area and you are not afraid to go where the hipsters or college students hang out, find your nearest thug-in-training and drag them with you to Chipotle and then StarBucks. You can even do it in reverse order if you're feeling funky. It doesn't make a difference. Just know that we can try to lower the crime rate by violating civil liberties or we can lower the crime rate by being civil and enjoying delightfully delicious food and drinks. We may have a couple zooted kids and the occasional case of chronic diahrrea, but isn't that a small price to pay?

First you had the "Stop Snitchin'" campaign by Skinny Suge. Now you have the "Stop Sinnin'" campaign by Reverend Jamal Bryant. I wonder how many people out of his 10,000 member congregation he'll run into on those street corners while doing their "peacful demonstrations".

I really hope they turn the Greenmount neighborhood around. It's between college-student infused Charles Village and up-and-coming Waverly. The city has got to get that rotten meat out of the middle of that sandwich

...Gotta run, I think someone with a gun and an STD just broke into my car and only stole CDs. Holla Black!

Friday, May 18, 2007

"I paint word pictures on the canvass of life" - Beanie SigelI had a conversation with a co-worker earlier about why he didn't like rap. His exact words were:

"I had a thought the other day about rap music and why it generally doesn't appeal to me. It's an extension of things I've said before, but I think it's an important one: I can't recall that I've ever heard rap music tell a story in the third person, or even in the first person but with a bit of humility thrown in instead of arrogance."

This really came as no surprise because he really only hears what's mainstream now and what was mainstream around the time Snoop and Dr. Dre were killing it in the early/mid 90s. So he loves Snoop and Dre nostalgically and he finds contemporary rappers unauthentic and arrogant.

I was glad he made that point to me because it forced me to think about who was a creative hip-hop storyteller. Immediately NaS came to mind. So I forwarded him the songs below:

There are more, but I was too lazy to dig them up...You can listen for yourself below. I think there are pretty good examples of one rapper (and there are definitely more) that has a penchant for telling stories creatively.

NaS is definitely one of the most creative rappers who has managed to stay relevant for most of his career and straddle the mainstream/street line pretty well. I think you would be hard-pressed to find a hip-hop fan (that is not Jay-Z STAN) that does not like NaSiR Jones.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

"Ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!"For about 4 years now, I've only listened to the radio sparingly. At the most once per month. I started getting tired of hearing the same songs all day every day a long long time ago and I endured it for a few months, but eventually, I stopped wanting to turn on the radio. As a result, I started diving more into my CD collection by listening to old music and buying more CDs. Not long thereafter, I realized that I could find a lot of new music through the InterWeb. Blogs, websites, file-sharing, etc. So as time went on, I found radio less and less useful and pleasing. Granted, I sit at a computer about 6.5 hours everyday so most of the music I listen to is either on my computer already or via the Internet.

Over the past few months I've been having thoughts about why I should listen to the radio. Lots of people still listen and that's how they discover music, keep up with news, and entertain themselves throughout the day. My music discovery process is really just word-of-mouth and what I find on the InterWeb through websites and blogs. Up to this point, I've been very satisfied with that and have not gone without decent music long enough to want to go back to radio. Another thing I've found is that the Internet gets the music quicker than radio seems to. I guess those payola checks aren't getting cashed quick enough.

Today I watched a couple videos online that made me realize that radio is probably a necessity in my life if I want to be able to fairly judge whether or not I like a song. The radio does one thing that's very important and that is enabling the listener to capture the music and not so much the image of the artist. In this case, I use image to mean appearance for the most part.

I'll use the following two videos to illustrate the point I'd like to make. The first, "Big Things Poppin'" is a decent song by TI. It's not great but it's an okay lead-single that will probably get radio play on most urban radio stations. That's all he needs to build steam for the rest of the album. This song has been on the Internet for a few weeks now and I've liked it, but it's definitely not what I would consider a great song. But today, I saw the video and it made me like the song a little bit more.

TI - Big Things Poppin'

The next song, "Straight to the Bank" by 50 Cent is a song that I've pretty much thought was subpar the first time I heard it. Again, this was before I saw the video. Then I watched the video today and realized that 1) I still don't like the song, but 2) I can understand why people would watch this video (having not heard just the song without the video to boot) and like the song. 50 Cent is an entertainer. He knows how to grab your attention through humor, outlandish statements, and a sense of self-worth that's extremely over-calculated at times. Because of all that, he has a knack (is that a word?) for making videos that catch your attention and enhance his songs. Even if the songs themselves are average or below, the video may very well be entertaining enough for you to listen to the song over-and-over, as long as it's accompanied by the video. By that time, you've formed a connection in your mind between the song and the video so whenever you hear the song again (even if the video isn't on), you'll connect the images from the video to the song.

50 Cent - Straight to the Bank

From a business standpoint, 50's moves are very shrewd. I think he has a keen understanding of how to market himself to urban youth. He'll see more records if he can get his video to make you think this song is actually hot. And he'll make millions off of it. From a music standpoint, I think it's weak. The music should always come before the visuals. But nowadays, that's what we're sold, images, not quality music. "Hip-hop started out in the park" and there wasn't a video camera there to enhance the rhymes. It was just rhyming from the heart about real feelings, thoughts, and emotions. That's turned into what we have now. A billion-dollar industry littered with artists who are more about the dollar than the music. We have to understand exactly what 50 is saying when he says he's "laughing straight to the bank."

From my perspective, listening to the radio more often would at least give me the opportunity to judge a new song based on the music and lyrics. That is, if I could successfully avoid hearing it so many times (10 times in 1 hour is a bit much) that I ended up liking it anyway. But that's another blogpost. If you really care about the music and not just the image that you're being sold, then I believe that radio could do a lot for you. There's nothing wrong with a dope video to complement a dope song. But dope videos should not be a substitute for wack music. That ain't HIP-HOP!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

My personal favorite shot from that video is the guy helping the kid onto the dirtbike who's too short to jump on it himself. That's parenting for ya!

Then again, maybe it's the credit line at the end of the video that says U-Tube.com. And in case you're wondering, that is supposed to read "youtube.com". With that said, I think Mayor Dixon has a larger problem on her hands than dirtbikes. Can we say, education?

Some other things that highlight the summer in Baltimore (in order of outrageousness):

Murder

An influx of tourists --> Robberies

Increasing number of panhandlers near the harbor (this could probably also be attributed to the influx the tourists)

The Orioles sucking

Shorts that look like jeans but are really shorts

Colorful hairdos

Big girls wearing little girl clothes

Kids selling water on every corner of every street everywhere

And I couldn't list all that without listing some of the good things:

Jazzy Summer Nights every first Thursday

Druid Hill Park on the weekends

ArtScape

The African American Heritage Festival

Crabs...The kind you eat...Outside...With your friends.

The Harbor during the daytime (LOL)

Happy Hours throughout the city

Harbor cruises

Fells Point or Canton on a Friday night

Friday evenings at Belvedere Square

WashWorks on Saturday morning when all the ladies get their cars washed for the weekend

Westside cookouts

Eastside parties

Just like any other city, Baltimore has its good things and its bad things. For the past few years I (with help from my boys BHill, Osei, Lionel, and Vinny) have been focusing on the good moreso than the bad. And hence, have found ways to enjoy myself. It's still not MY CITY though. I just live here. LOL.

Monday, May 7, 2007

I've been a fan of Floyd Mayweather for a minute now. No matter what his antics are outside the ring - and how much his mouth runs like a faucet that spews immaturely ignorant statements of self-absorbed banter and lack of care for what you think of him - I think he's a great boxer. For that reason, I root for him to win. I love watching his precision punching, immaculate defense, and overall swagger while in the ring. You CANNOT take that from him no matter how much his persona outside the ring personifies all that is wrong with being young, rich, and not giving a "you-know-what." I guess that makes him all the more entertaining.

Saturday night I watched the most anticipated fight in quite some time at my boy W-G's place. Among friends, with a cigar in my mouth and cognac in my cup, I got ready to settle in for what I knew would be a great fight. Needless to say, Floyd did not let me down. It seemed like there were a lot of people who thought that De La Hoya would win this fight, but my perspective was that unless he was the aggressor for 12 straight rounds, he wasn't going to win. Oscar seems to be too much of a thinker in the ring at times and not a brawler. Brawling would have been his best chance to beat Floyd. Prepare to go in there and stalk him for 12 rounds and try your best not to tire. That would have given the fans a great fight to watch and given him his best chance to win. Instead, he tried to out-box a boxer to no avail. And in the end, I think that is the reason he lost.

Though I was anxious to see the fight, during the fight I had the opportunity to have a small photo session with one of my favorite little ones in the whole wide world...

And of course I was forced to wear the sunglasses because she just had to get a picture of me in them...

Don't ask me why I insist on continuing to post embarrassing pictures of myself. Just don't.

Back to the fight though. From the entrance to the ring where he came out draped in the colors of the Mexican flag, wearing a sombrero, and obviously taunting the extremely PRO-De La Hoya crowd (he even had his boy Half-Dollar aka 50 Cent accompany him to the ring while rapping his latest release, "Straight to the Bank"), to the smiles he showedd during the fight when De La Hoya would get a rare good shot in on him, Floyd's personality and ability in the ring dominated the fight.

In the end, Floyd beat De La Hoya in a 12-round bout that really didn't measure up to all the hype and was a lot LESS close than the split decision would lead you to believe. After the fight, Floyd reiterated that he plans on retiring and in the most sensible thing I've heard come from his mouth the last 6 months or so he said that he'd like to spend more time with his kids. Finally, something seemingly human comes out of his mouth. But in the meantime, I'm sure he and 50 will be celebrating his win with some of that groupie love.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

About a month or so ago I first heard the USDA (Young Jeezy, Slick Pulla, and Bloodraw) song "White Girl". The first thing I noticed was the beat, then I immediately started laughing because of Jeezy's reference in the hook to "white girl" being cocaine. Laughing out loud and nodding my head, I continued listening. Ya'll know what I mean, the beat caught me!

I listened to to Jeezy's verse..."Same ole' same ole'". Then Pulla's..."This dude's voice is ill." And then I listened to Bloodraw's verse..."B. Rothstein, who's that? He always says that! What does that shyt mean?" The beat was catchy/bangin' though, so I knew this would be a club banger. And once club bangers get popular in the South, it spreads north (to the epicentre of hip-hop) quickly.

I've heard Slick Pulla rhyme before and he doesn't really impress me in the same way that Jeezy's raps don't impress me. But at the same time, he's entertaining/funny to listen to just like Jeezy is. Unlike Jeezy, it's not because of his ad-libs, but because of how seriously he seems to take what he is saying when you know there's no way it could all be true. Jeezy does the same thing when he rhymes, but his ad-libs and awkwardly entertaining punchlines overshadow a lot of the other stuff he says. In addition to Slick taking himself a little too seriously, he has one of those voices that makes you wonder, "What does this guy look like", because his voice is soft but he's rapping about trappin'. Bloodraw has the same affect on you as well because of his voice. His high-pitched voice with his southern drawl makes you think he probably looks like Lil Boosie.

But with all that said, as I listened to White Girl, I realized that I actually like the song, a lot. Not because of it's lyricism or message (obviously), but because the beat bangs and their verses are just good enough for you to coast through 3-minutes of trap-talk. After my first time listening, I played the song back about 10 more times. Since that time, I have gone back and listened to the song occasonally and I've had conversations with two friends about whether or not naming the song "White Girl" could be considered offensive. Beyond that, I wondered if Jeezy's plan to build steam for the song (and the upcoming album) by recruiting white girls women to promote the song was in poor taste. Def Jam apparently shut down that idea, but the song is building steam on the InterWeb and I just saw a preliminary version of the video over at "Notes from a Different Kitchen". Check it out:

There's nothing special about the video at all, but (of course) there are white girls in the video and the ever-present backdrop is "the streets". I couldn't help but laugh to myself when I saw the first white girl come on-screen. But now this makes me wonder, is Young Jeezy a potentiallymarketing genius?

If the title of this song does ruffle some feathers and become a controversial topic, how much promotion will Young Jeezy and USDA end up getting free of charge when people like Bill O'Reilly and CNN get ahold of it? And if you think that possibility is far-fetched, consider that CNN ran a story about Young Jeezy's child support problems maybe a year or so ago.

In the end what you have is a pretty formulaic trap track. The title and theme are just UNoffensive enough to keep Def Jam from shutting the single down. Who's going to shut a single down because it's called "White Girl" when there have been tons of songs with the word ni99a or worse in the title? At the same time, "White Girl" could be considered just offensive enough (by some people) to cause a stir. In the end, there's nothing overtly offensive about the term "white girl" in and of itself. It depends on context. In this particular case, comparing white girls to cocaine really isn't that big of a deal (to me). It would be a different story if the song was called "White Girl" and they were making deragatory blanket statements about white women in general.

From a marketing standpoint, the concept may pan out to be either ingenius or that of an idiot savant (sorta). Considering it's Jeezy, Imma go with idiot savant. This is the same guy who said this:

I gotta riddle...Stack of 20 dollar bills/two bands in the middle

Forgive me if I missed the riddle in that. I'm a bit slow.

Anyway, if the song's title does cause a stir, he'll get tons of free promotion. In reality, who can stop him from saying "white girl". It's just non-offensive enough for most people to not care and it's seeemingly offensive enough to cause a stir among some folks. Jeezy might be a genius, by mistake. I guess it's like my co-worker said:

"If anybody should take offense -- I'd think it'd be my girl Christina Aguilera -- who shouldn't have her name taken in vain in a Jeezy song."

Maybe they should have tried to get Ms. Aguilera to be in the video, LOL.